John's Campaign

John's Campaign is a campaign for extended visiting rights for family carers of patients with dementia in hospitals in the United Kingdom, founded on 30 November 2014 by the writer Nicci Gerrard and Julia Jones.

In February 2014 Nicci Gerrard's father Dr John Gerrard, aged 86, spent five weeks in hospital for the treatment of leg ulcers. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease and his family's visiting was severely restricted because of a combination of normal "visiting hours" and an infectious outbreak. His condition deteriorated dramatically while he was in hospital; having previously been living well with Alzheimers he became "skeletal, incontinent, immobile, incoherent" and needed 24-hour care. He died in November 2014. His family believe that the lack of contact with familiar people and the lack of the individual attention they would have given him contributed significantly to his deterioration. In November 2014 Nicci Gerrard wrote an article in The Observer after her father's death, the following week's issue featured several supportive letters, and the campaign developed thereafter.

An Early Day Motion was put before the UK Parliament in December 2014 with the title "John's Campaign and the right to stay with dementia patients in hospital."

The campaign has received coverage including the April 2015 edition of the Alzheimer's Society's magazine Living with Dementia and BBC Radio 4's You and Yours consumer programme on 29 April 2015.

In March 2016 it was announced that the campaign had been endorsed by the NHS and that trusts would be encouraged "to consider facilitating an approach whereby the families and carers of people with dementia can support them fully while they are in hospital".

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